> >:>::^:>.^ 


















•».>"> 






D'^*%'<%'^'§: 









fLIBRARYOFCOJVGRESS.f 

1=^?^^ 



i> x;s 






>>>^>= 

.:>.>>^ 



^UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.^ 


















r:3?>. £>. 


















>0» o^ ^- "^^ ^^ ^ 


















&.'2>) -■> > XZ> ^2>> X>3>^ >: 






2»..32 



^-'^ 3*^:^^^ 



3 3:^ 



> 3:5:) ^)> 
£>":>:>> o" 

" :?x> 3 

:>:>> >^ 
>^ s:^ ^t>::> ^> ^ 



>3.J> 3j>3o' 
^^^ '32X3 J 



_ >^S:» ^3::> 
-^>:>-:^''\3>:2 
>>!> ^ v3>:S 
>>r> 5' ^^ 3>^5> 333 

X>:> ^^^^ ^>1>l3S>3 

> t> 3 ■ "^ >>.:f> 3i>:> 

' O y ' .vj, '>»>> :;;:>33 ' 
>3>^3^ 3>1> :z>2>3 

>3>. > •■ )^ :>3>" 

> ^^ >=.^:> ~ 
3 5^ >^^>3o3 



> '^P?3 :>^03®^ >^3 3^^ 
'^33 3 _ 

.i:»)->33^ ->:03 o>_^^ 
'^^ :>3»_:^ >0>..^.-. 

-o^ 3' i> ^:> >?>> > ^ 

^3 3>:2>3C>>X 
► jj>j> >,>:">? '^^ z 
i>?^ :>> ^ :>'^>3 ^ ^^^^ ^ 
^>3 '>33> >?.> ^ ^^^?-^ 
»:> ^ > >z> 3> y3 > ^-33 3 
>5> >"i>"^Z> 3^^r:> > >:33-:3 

:j>» 3 • ' > 3>:2) > 5 ::>.i> >4>^ >:?.-=> . 

*^:y> > 3> 3>;:3i3^X>3.:5 

:3>3 ^. ^ ~ZS>ltxr^ 33 - g^ ^ 



:>:> t> >i3 



€i}c <Bxic^tmx^ of €o:^tsap, 

CASTE, SUFFRAGE, LABOR, TEMPERANCE, RELIGION. 



AN ORATIOI^ 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE WESLEYAN ACADEMY ALUMNI 

ASSOCIATION AT WILBRAHAM, MASS., 

JUNE 29, 1870. 



DAMO^ Y. KILGOEE ESQ. 



OF PHILADELPHIA. 



NEW YORK: 
PUBLISHED BY PIURD AND HOUGHTON. 

1870. 



€]^c OSnc^tion^ of Co^tsap, 

CASTE, SUFFRAGE, LABOR, TEMPERANCE, RELIGION. 



X'N OEATION 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE WESLEYAN ACADEMY ALUMNI 

ASSOCIATION AT WTLBRAHAM, MASS., 

JUNE 29, 1870. 



DAMO^ Y. TvILGORE ESQ. 



OF PHILADELPHIA. 




/ 

/ 

NEW YORK: 

PUBLISHED BY IIURD AND PIOUftlTTON. 

Camliritf gr : iU'farrst'lf r ^Dicss". 

1S70. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, iu the year IS'O, by 

Damox Y. Kilhore, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 

STERF, OTYPED AND PRINTED BY 

U. 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 






OFFICERS OF THE WESLEYAN ACADEMY ALUMNI 
ASSOCIATION. 



1869-70. 
Rev. CHARLES K. TRUE, D. D., President. 
Rev. DAVID K. MERRILL, \ 

Mrs. a. C. KNIGHT, > Vice Presidents. 

Pkof. D. M. BRUMAGIM, A. M., ) 
Mrs. D. M. BRUMAGIM, Secretary. 



1870-71. 
Hon. valorous TAFT, President. 
W. P.. MILLER, M. D., 

Rev. P. OTHEMAN, {^^^^^^, Phesidents. 

Rev. D. PATTEN, D. D., 
Rev. E. COOKE, D. D., 
Mrs. J. WESLEY BLISS, Secretary and Treasurer. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



1). Y. KiLGOUE, Esq. 

Dear Sir, — At a meeting of the Wesleyan Academy Alumni Associa- 
tion, held at Wilbraham, June 29th, 1870, tlie following resolution was 
unanimously adopted : — 

Resolved, That the thanks of this Association be tendered to D. Y. 
Kilgore, Esq., for his able and very Interesting oration delivered before us 
this day, and that we request a copy of the same for publication 

Very respectfully, 

Mrs. D. M. BRUMAGnr, 

Secretary W. A. A. A. 



Mrs. D. M. Brumagim, Secy Wes. AcaxVy Alumni Association. 

Bear Madam, — The manuscript copy of tlie address delivered yester- 
day before your Association is hereby placed at your disposal. 

Very respectfully, 

Damox Y. Kilgore. 

WiLBKAHAM, Jwie 30, 1870. 



THE QUESTIONS OF TO-DAY. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Wesleyan 
Academy Alumni Association : — 

The world is not content. Motion is everywhere 
throuo-hout the realm of mind. There is no such thino- as 
rest. Inertia is a property of matter recognized by man's 
outward sense alone. Those atomic enero-ies, inherent in 
a block of wood or stone, are dormant only to man's touch 
and vision, because of his too gross perception, or the huge- 
ness of the apparatus with which he works. 

Whether attraction, repulsion, electricity, and magnet- 
ism are properties of dead matter, or of the elements of 
life which accompany it ; whether it acts, or is simply 
acted upon by these and other forces, external and supe- 
rior to itself, — one result is reached, a constant, ceaseless 
motion, a perpetual change. From the minutest cell of 
vegetable life, within which narrow limits the vital essence, 
responsive to the light of heaven, pulsates to the outer 
wall, or the smallest monad that exhibits active enero-v, 
the simplest form of animated being perceptible, through 
all the realms of intelligent existence up to man, there 
is no exception to this great law of change. 

Time is a universal leveler ; and the most endurino- 
monuments, even the granite mountains and the everlast- 
ing hills, crumble beneath his remorseless blows. So with 
all the material works of man. He builds houses, and the 
years tear them down. He erects monuments to perpetu- 



G THE QUESTIONS OF TO-DAY. 

ate his fame ; but the ages hurl them back to dust, and 
wipe out their memory from human thought. 

To-day I recall this landscape as it was twenty years 
ago. How changed in that short period ! Of all the 
buildings called by the corporate name of this Institution, 
one only remains. The old Academy still stands, a defiant 
monument, proof against the innovations of masons and 
carpenters, and the destroying hand of Time. But that 
also will soon follow its predecessors ; and before another 
score of years shall pass, upon its ruins a grander temple 
of education shall be reared, of ampler dimensions, beauti- 
ful in architecture, and of solid material, which shall con- 
tribute to and keep pace with the advancing civilization 
of a new era. The old must die that the new may live. 
These changes, whether wrought in a score of years or 
ages, all speak to the philosophic mind of prosperity and 
progress. 

From the strife and toil of business in our various pur- 
suits, the students of former years have gathered here to 
renew the Past. 

To this hallowed spot, consecrated to science and relig- 
ion, and enshrined in all our hearts, we have come to 
live over again the golden years of youth. The memory 
of those years is still green in our minds; and to recount 
the incidents of our school-days in The Wesleyan Acad- 
emy, incidents of defeats and victories, victories that proved 
to be defeats, and defeats that turned out to be victories, — 
all matters of interest as preparation for life's after strug- 
gles, — would be a pleasing task. 

But amid the perplexities of a profession which knows 
no rest, anticipating the array of talent and learning which 
I now behold, gathered from the East, West, North, and 
South, together with the resistless might of such mentality 



THE QUESTIONS OF TO-DAY. 7 

upon the future destiny of our country, I feel constrained 
to speak to you of 

THE QUESTIONS OF TO-DAY. 

At no period of the world's history have great events 
crowded each other on the highway of Time with such 
swiftness and force as in the life-time of those now before 
me. This nineteenth century seems privileged to appro- 
priate all knowledge of the centuries gone before, and in 
it seems to culminate the wisdom of antiquity. 

It is the duty of those who live to-day — the impera- 
tive duty of developed and cultivated minds — to adapt 
all human knowledge to human wants, and thus to utilize 
the Past. For this all history, whether written in books, 
or stones, or stars, becomes available to the comprehension 
and establishment of the real philosophy of life. 

To learn the importance of this age in which we are 
privileged to live and act, we need not go back to those 
remote ages about which geology tells, when the founda- 
tions of the earth were laid, when this infant world was 
rocked in its cradle of volcanic fires, its thin crust swayed 
to and fro by the swelling tide of boiling lava ; or millions 
of years thereafter, when New England's hills were lifted 
by those internal forces, and lakes and seas wiped out by 
the volcano's fiery breath ; or to a later period still, when 
gigantic Ichthyosauri ploughed the seas, huge Iguanodons 
roamed through the forests, or the murky air was navi- 
gated by the Pterodactyl, which like Milton's Fiend, jour- 
neying from Pandemonium, — 

" Treading the crude consistence, half on foot, 
Half flying ; . . . 

O'er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare, 
With head, hands, wings, or feet pursues his way. 
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies." 



8 THE QUESTIONS OF TO-DAY 

Nor need we study minutely the earliest traditions of 
the human race, to learn the mighty significance of the 
present age, in which " nations are born in a day." 

We do not underrate the Past. Other centuries have 
been prolific in great events, which in history 

" Stand .sublime, 
Flino-iii"; their shadows from on hi^^h, 
Like dials, which the wizard Time 
Had raised to count his ages by." 

The century from which we reckon time, was heralded 
by the world's most perfect specimen of manhood. In him 
culminated the virtues of all the myriads gone before; and 
although rejected by his own age, and made the victim of 
ignorance and vice, he stands to-day a great moral lumi- 
nary, shedding his light upon all the years that have 
intervened, and will continue to gladden all the years to 
come. Without reference to the controverted question in 
theology as to his divine nature, all just minds agree 
that in illustrating the possibilities of hmnan nature, the 
man of Nazareth has placed under obligations all future 
generations. 

The victory of the people over King John in securing 
Magna Charta, which Mr. Hallam calls " the key-stone of 
English liberty," in the thirteenth, and the reformation 
in the church, commenced by Luther in the sixteenth, 
consecrated both centuries to immortality. But the 
greatest event in history, since the birth of Christ, was 
the Declaration of American Independence. It introduced 
a new era in human government. It opened up a new 
path for the human race, Avorn and wearied with forty 
centuries of wandering in the wilderness. By it the old 
superstitions which hedged in royalty were swept away, 
and kingly prerogatives assumed as the inherent right 



THE QUESTION OF CASTE. 9 

of manlioocl alone. That instrument declared the people s 
ri2:ht to institute such o;overnment as would secure to 
them " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," and 
that " whenever any form of government becomes de- 
structive of these ends, it is the right of the people to 
alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, 
laying its foundations on such principles, and organizing 
its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely 
to effect their safety and happiness." 

What the mariner's compass was to navigation, the 
printing-press to literature, the steam-engine to machin- 
ery, and the electric telegraph to transmitted thought, 
these principles are destined to be to human government. 
To make them practical, however, will require something 
more than amendments to the Constitution of the United 
States. 

It will require years of education, struggle, conflict, 
heroism, and perhaps the sacrifice of blood, to lift Amer- 
ican civilization to a practical acknowledgment of the 
equality of all human souls in rights, not only to life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but to enlighten- 
ment, opportunity for mental and spiritual growth, and 
an untrammeled reliorion. 

The first great obstacle we have to encounter, hostile 
to all individual and national progress, is the 

QUESTION OF CASTE. 

Strange indeed that after ninety years of experiment 
and four more years of terrible slaughter, we are not yet 
able to read the first line of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence aright. Strange indeed that after four mil- 
lions of slaves have been emancipated, the Fifteenth 
Amendment ratified, the ballot placed in the hands of 



10 THE QUESTION OF CASTE. 

the colored man, and when both political parties are -striv- 
ing for his vote, that the spirit of caste should remain. 

It was to be expected that in the South the prejudices 
of two hundred years, exasperated by suffering and de- 
feat, would strive to vent its outraged dignity upon the 
new-made freemen. But this spirit of caste is strong and 
vigorous in the North, where every object upon which 
the eye can rest should rebuke its wicked and hateful 
presumption. Emancipation came as a military neces- 
sity, in order to save the nation's life, not from a sense 
of duty to the slave. Enfranchisement followed as a 
political party necessity, rather than a conscientious be- 
lief in his right to the ballot. To-day in my own city, 
crowned with hallowed memories of freedom, which rival 
Faneuil Hall and Bunker Hill ; where first the tones of 
Independence Bell proclaimed "Liberty throughout all 
the land unto all the inhabitants thereof;" where the 
Declaration was pubHshed, amid the ringing of bells, 
booming of cannon, and the shouts of a people deter- 
mined to be free, — the spirit of caste is rampant. 

In that city of Penn, of brotherly love and devotion 
to the Union, only a few weeks since the procession in 
honor of the Fifteenth Amendment was ruthlessly at- 
tacked, and several of the colored people injured. This 
outrage was charged upon the Democratic party ; but 
this spirit of hatred is not confined to party. In that 
same city a United States Senator was denied the privi- 
lege of speaking in the Academy of Music, by a board 
of trustees composed of prominent Republicans, simply 
and only because his skin was dark. 

The same hostility lives in the church, and at times 
inspires the pulpit. The most popular clergyman in our 
city a few days since gave vent to his feelings in these 



THE QUESTION OF CASTE. 11 

words : " If the black man can be educated by himself, 
well; but if not, educate him never ;'" adding, as a supple- 
ment, " That man never lived, and that nation God has 
never made, that can compel me to educate m// children 
with the negro." Listening to his words, I remembered 
that nearly twenty years before, this same clergyman at 
the World's Temperance Convention in New York, by 
stamping his feet, endeavored to silence the gentle voice 
of woman, earnestly pleading in behalf of that sacred 
cause. 

The negro, in his upward progress, encounters fearful 
obstacles. He is not yet received into our academies and 
colleges, and in many places even the public schools are 
closed against him. Money, omnipotent as it is to elevate 
the smallest and most vicious of the Anglo-Saxon race, is 
unable to secure to him protection from insult in hotels 
and in the railroad cars. The negro pew still gives the 
lie to many a pulpit. 

The loo-ic of events has lifted the black man to the 
dignity of an American citizen ; let him have all the 
rights, franchises, and dignities, civil, social, educational, 
or religious, thereunto belonging. Let him be welcome 
to the school-house, the church, the workshop, the marts 
of trade, the offices of government, and the learned pro- 
fessions. Let him forget his color and the degradation 
of his race in his noble eflbrts to become intelligent and 
good. 

The spirit of caste is not confined to the negro. It 
has never permitted us to deal justly with the Indian, 
and has recently developed a feeling of hostility towards 
the Chinese. 

We should blush for our civilization, to say nothing of 
our boasted Christianity, when we remember the cruel 



12 THE QUESTION OF CASTE. 

wrongs practiced upon the aborigines with national sanc- 
tion. Driven from their homes and the graves of their 
fathers, robbed of their hxnd by tlie general government, 
cheated by official agents out of what belonged to them 
by solemn treaty, charged with crimes committed by 
abandoned Avhite men in Indian costume, debauched by 
rumsellers, their women and children murdered by our 
Custars, Bakers, and Sheridans for a pastime or by " mis- 
take," it is no wonder the Indian seeks revenge. 

If the threatened hostilities for which the Western 
tribes are at this moment making preparation, are pre- 
vented, all honor to President Grant. It Avill be a 
victory more truly glorious than any he has ever won in 
battle. This triumph of Justice in behalf of Peace would 
wreathe his brow in garlands of amaranthine beauty, and 
crown his memory with a diadem of richer jewels than 
ever monarch wore. 

The Indians who have just visited Washington ask 
»nly justice in the simple language of truth. To this 
are they entitled. The only true policy for nations, as 
for individuals, is implicit obedience to the great law of 
right, which appeals to the moral sense of all minds, 
civilized or savage, — " Whatsoever ye ivould that men should 
do unto you, do ye even so to them." No considerations of 
expediency can justify any departure from this great 
rule of right. Obedience here, all history testifies, is 
permanent success, individual or national honor, strength, 
greatness. 

Napoleon Bonaparte — whom Emerson calls the "deputy 
of the nineteenth century" — after all his victories de- 
clared, " THERE IS NO POWER WITHOUT JUSTICE." The greatest 
genius, with the amplest opportunity and the profoundest 
learning, is strong only as he is just. 



THE QUESTION OF CASTE. 13 

In its treatment of the Indians, our government can 
with propriety exchiim, in the language of Victor Hugo, 
'' It is easy to be charitable, but God ! it is hard to be 
just." But hard as it is, by all the failures of dishonest 
policy and wicked expediency, wherever or by whomso- 
ever tried, as well as by the sufferings and horrors an 
extensive war would bring, is our nation urged to do 
justice to the Indian. 

This question of caste becomes important as applied 
to the Mongolian race, which already constitutes a large 
^Droportion of the population on our Pacific slope. The 
politicians of California have already done much to 
inaugurate a war of races at no distant period. Their 
spirit of hostility to this inferior race has been incorpo- 
rated into their statutes, and thus have the sanctions of 
legislation been given to cruelty and injustice. 

There is a beautiful theory in mechanics by which 
" forces are to each other in the same proportion as is 
the diagonal of their respective parallelograms." This 
parallelogram of forces is as truly applicable to the moral 
actions of men and nations as to mechanics. 

As the enslavement of the negro deluged our land 
with blood, as our dishonest Indian policy has wrought 
out similar results, so will injustice to the Chinese, in the 
end, bring upon our land the same bitter fruits. The 
poisonous tree of injustice, though jDlanted in golden 
sands, can produce only the fruit of death. 

The Chinese come to us as representatives of a race 
that numbers nearly half the population of the globe — 
a nation whose civilization flourished when the so-called 
Christian nations were obscured in barbarism. 

With the exception of the steam-engine and the 
electric telegraph, nearly every valuable invention of 



14 THE QUESTION OF CASTE. 

modern times had been in use for centuries in China,, 
before they had become known to the nations of Europe. 
They were familiar with porcelain, gunpowder, paper, 
printing, and the mariner's compass long before these 
inventions Avere thought of by other nations. 

No country in the world pays such homage to education 
as the Chinese. Although their system is not to be com- 
pared to other nations, their public offices are open for 
competition to all the graduates of their academies, 
colleges, and universities. 

Their people, even the lowest classes, can read and 
write, and not to understand something of arithmetic is 
considered a disgrace. Those wdio have come to this 
country have exhibited great industry, mechanical in- 
genuity and skill, politeness and economy — lessons of 
much practical value to the inhabitants of the far West. 
The Chinese are preeminently a peaceful people, so 
much so that their military organization, prior to their 
war with England, was inefficient and contemptible. 
They have always regarded military ability as evidence 
of an inferior civilization, though they place a high value 
upon personal courage, and celebrate the exploits of their 
heroes in song and story. According to their chronology, 
Egyptians and Jews, compared with the Chinese, are the 
merest striplings, and all the great nations of the earth 
mere babes, still wrapped in the swaddling-clothes of time. 
They proudly tell us of heroes and philosophers who 
flourished twenty-seven thousand years before Columbus 
unfurled the royal banner of Castile upon this Western 
World, and point with pride to the celestial character of 
their empire, which has withstood the pressure of four 
hundred and twenty centuries. 

If John Chinaman does sometimes exhibit a super- 



THE QUESTION OF CASTE. 15 

abundance of national pride, or an overbearing demeanor 
towards upstart nations, there is some excuse for him, 
and our countrymen should be the last to complain. If 
able to exceed the boastful ardor of American patriotism, 
his title to celestial would be indisputable, for he would 
have accomplished what no mere terrestrial citizen could 
ever do. 

What these people need after their long exclusion from 
the outside world, is kind treatment, fair play, and contact 
with the life and energy of this universal Yankee nation. 
Sound statesmanship would repeal that selfish and partial 
legislation which brands the Chinese immigrant alone as 
a Pariah among races — an injustice so flagrant that it 
cannot fail to bring disastrous and speedy retribution. 
A system of oppression will create their animosity and 
arouse their desire for revenge — a calamity more to be 
dreaded than the Iwstility of any other nation, for the 
China of the future will not be that of the past. The 
great wall has been broken down, and modern science has 
marked out for that people a new path to national pros- 
perity and power. They have established schools at 
various places for the purpose of educating their young 
men in all the arts of modern warfare, and have several 
arsenals in successful operation. The navy yard at 
Shanghai covers about three hundred acres of land, 
where thirteen hundred skilled workmen are eng-ag-ed in 
building steamers and gun-boats and all kinds of mu- 
nitions of war, under the superintendence of thirteen of 
the most competent European and American mechanics. 
They launched their first vessel less than two years ago, 
and now they have five large steamers and several gun- 
boats nearly completed, fashioned after the most ap- 
proved models. To enable them to become expert in 



16 THE QUESTION OF SUFFRAGE. 

war, their scientific men are importing valuable libraries 
of scientific books, which their sinologues are busily 
engaged in translating into their own language. With a 
population nearly twice as large as all Europe and thir- 
teen times larger than the United States, eager to learn 
all modern improvements, and in addition to all this, 
with a government of almost unlimited power to carry 
out its plans, China will soon become a great power in 
the world, and as competent to comjDcl England to drink 
tea as she was to dose China with opium in 1842. 

Let us cherish their friendship by dealing with Chinese 
immigrants precisely as we do with other foreigners who 
leave their father-land to become part and parcel of The 
Great Republic. 

Overcoming the self-righteous spirit of caste towards 
the negro, the Indian, and the Chinese, we shall be pre- 
pared to adopt the noble motto of the French Revolution 
of 1848, — Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Liberty guarded, 
and protected by law ; Equality in natural rights ; and 
that Fraternity which recognizes the common brother- 
hood of mankind. With minds thoroughly imbued with 
this liberal and humane spirit, we should be qualified to 
solve the great question, — 

AVHO SHALL VOTE? 

Shall suffrage be universal, or shall it be limited by sex, 
education, or birthplace ? 

The ballot, in a true democracy, is the citizen's royal 
prerogative, to which the firmest prejudices must yield. 
Like the famous writ of Habeas Corpus, before whose power 
the strongest prison doors fly open, it brings the oppressed 
and his oppressor face to face with Justice. 

To the poor man the ballot is a treasure more precious 



THE QUESTION OF SUFFRAGE. 17 

than gold. It is protection to the weak, knowledge to 
the ignorant, self-respect and encouragement even to the 
vile. Rightly used, it signifies manhood, opportunity, 
enlightenment, and that equality which means equity. 
Even in its abuse, it is preferable to despotism ; for by 
their mistakes in choice of men and measures, the people 
learn wisdom, and thus the ballot becomes an educator. 

In this country, by constitutional provision, no citizen 
can legally be deprived of his right to vote " on account of 
race, color, or previous condition of servitude.'' 

In this connection, I recall the noble words of Charles 
Sumner, — the Nestor of the American Senate, — when 
speaking of the injustice of denying the ballot on account 
of race. 

Mr. Sumner said, " When I am asked what may be the 
qualifications, I say clearly those things which are attain- 
able to human effort, not those things tliat by the provi- 
dence of God are unattainable. Sir, it would be an insult 
to God and to humanity to say that such a thing can be 
a qualification." With equal force, I apply these words 
to the injustice of disfranchising one half of the Ameri- 
can people on account of sex. 

As long ago as Edward I., in England, writs of sum- 
mons were issued, declaring it to be " « most equitable ride, 
that what concerns all should he approved of hy all." 

Woman is as much concerned in having wise and just 
laws for the government and education of her children, 
as well as for her own protection, and I may add, is as 
dependent upon equitable regulations of society for all the 
grandest aims of life, as it is possible for man to be. 

In his celebrated Essay on Civil Government, Locke 
tells us that " there is nothing more evident than that crea- 
tures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born 



18 THE QUESTION OF SUFFRAGE. 

to the same advantages of nature and the use of the same 
faculties, should also be equal, one amongst another, with- 
out subordination or subjection." 

It is true that among the ancients, mankind were 
divided into two classes, the few who were masters, and 
the many who were slaves. Women were included in the 
degraded class, and were compelled to perform the least 
honorable services. Her person was either taken by force 
or made the subject of barter and trade ; even fathers 
regularly sold their daughters in marriage, without their 
consent. 

The Roman Civil Law — the grandest monument of 
that world-conquering empire — held women in such 
complete subjection to their imperious lords, that the hus- 
band had the power of life and death over the wife, while 
she could have no remedy in law against him. The polite 
and cultured Athenian regarded woman as a mere toy, 
rather than as a companion and an equal ; while the rude 
and more ignorant Spartan honored her only for her war- 
like achievements. 

In France, not a hundred years ago, a peasant was 
ploughing, with a donkey and a woman for a team. Both 
were harnessed to the plough, both pulled alike, and both 
were alike subject to the lash. Even this was more 
humane than the laws of England, which recently per- 
mitted parents and guardians to harness their daughters 
and wards to human donkeys for life, vinculo matrimonii, and 
gave the donkey power to " beat his wife in moderation," 
or " to imprison her in any room of his house," if she 
wouldn't pull. 

The law, in Europe and the United States, now gives the 
husband, upon the completion of the marriage ceremony 
(which in the Methodist Church has been very much im- 



THE QUESTION OF SUFFRAGE. 19 

proved of late, by striking out the wife's promise to obey), 
a complete title to all the goods and chattels of the wife, 
and the rents and profits of her lands. In most of the 
States, the law gives the intemperate husband the legal 
right to sell even the wife's earnings or her personal 
clothing for rum, while in several States the husband's 
power to cowhide his wife " in moderation " still remains. 
Thus are wives to-day, as far as legal obligation goes, in 
actual servitude. 

Tf, after twenty centuries of masculine legislation, so 
many legal disabilities dishonor the statute-books of the 
most advanced nations on the globe, is it not high time 
for woman to demand the ballot ? 

Buckle tells us that '• the boasted civilizations of 
antiquity were eminently one-sided, and that they fell 
because society did not advance in all its parts, but sacri- 
ficed some of its constituents, in order to secure the prog- 
ress of others." 

Plato was the first to discover the dualism in material 
objects and mental ideas, and the first to acknowledge the 
social and political equality of the two sexes. 

We have experimented with one-sided legislation long 
enough. Equity knows no distinction of race or sex. The 
highest government is an absolute monarchy, limited to 
the individual, and implies perfect control over one's self 
The next in rank is a democracy, based on the free con- 
sent of all the governed. 

It is manifestly as unjust for one half the citizens to sit 
in judgment upon the right of the other half to share in 
that government to which they are subject, as was the 
attempt of the mother country to compel the original 
thirteen Colonies to pay the tax on tea. " Men," in the 
Declaration of Independence, should always be interpreted 



20 THE QUESTION OF SUFFRAGE. 

in its generic sense, to signify mankind ; and the word 
" rights " should comprehend the fullest exercise of one's 
faculties, to secure and protect which is instituted human 
government, " deriving its just powers from the consent of 
the governed." If it fjiils to secure these rights, then it 
becomes the right of the people, not half of them, " to 
alter or to abolish it." 

Such is the exact language of Jefferson's great bill of 
indictment against Geora;e III. The Kino- was charjjed 
in one of the counts with " giving his assent to acts of 
pretended legislation," which imposed taxes on the people 
without their consent. In the great trial by battle, the 
King was found guilty, and deprived of the brightest jew- 
els of his crown. In violation of the very principles sus- 
tained by that verdict, we tax women who are entirely 
unrepresented, not only without their consent, but in spite 
of their earnest and repeated remonstrance. I know it is 
said that women are now represented by men better than 
they could represent themselves. This is the answer of 
the slave-holder. It has its roots in the law of the strong- 
est, and is a type of that disposition to command which 
orio-inated in barbarism. It is enout»:h that woman has 
never given her consent to be thus represented. All such 
representation is misrepresentation. With greater pro- 
priety can men become proxies for each other in the elec- 
tive franchise than for women. 

" As the earth took on its rotary motion, its feminine 
law of control and harmony, so must society." Our laws 
are one-sided, masculine. They are corporeal, but soulless ; 
external, but destitute of spirit. They are eminently 
punitive and unequal. The feminine side nearest the 
heart is wanting. They will never succeed until supplied 
with those qualities of soul, unity, restraint, and harmony, 
which woman alone can give. 



THE QUESTION OF SUFFRAGE. 21 

The objection that difference of opinion woukl produce 
discord in fhmihes, is a virtual confession of that matri- 
monial servitude which the law of equal freedom would 
abolish. As society advances, the position of woman in 
the family and in the home circle is found to Ije one of 
control, not by command and authority, which are always 
selfish and repellent, but by tlie generous sympathies of 
her nature, and the gushing tenderness of her love. The 
government is only the family on a larger scale ; and 
those same qualities which, by a law of nature, enable 
her to control in all well-regulated families, would be felt 
also in the state, restraining, harmonizing, and every- 
where elevating society. 

Nor should it be feared that by giving her the ballot, 
— the only power in a free country which can secure 
that perfect equality to which she is entitled, — that 
woman will degrade herself. A masculine woman will 
not control the state. The feminine law, which is every- 
where the law of peace, is what our government needs. 
Woman's control in politics, if exercised at all, will be 
felt at the ballot-box and in legislation, by the exercise 
of her womanly qualities of endurance, firmness, j)iirity 
and peace. Her intuition and conscientiousness will be- 
come a beacon-light, pointing out the true path of prog- 
ress, harmonizing the law of justice with the law of love, 
and overcoming the cold-hearted selfishness of corrupt 
politicians by the irresistible might of a higher example. 

If woman is ignorant of political economy and the 
science of government, it is no reason she should be 
deprived of her just rights. Unfortunately ignorance is 
not confined to woman, nor is intelligence always joined 
to the elective franchise. 

Equity, justice, right, always harmonize with the wisest 



22 THE QUESTION OF SUFFRAGE. 

expediency, and awarding to woman an equal share in 
the government with man will l^e no excej)tion to this 
universal law. 

Whatever qualifications may be imposed upon suffrage, 
let them be equally applicable to both sexes, and such as 
^^ are attainable hy human effort T 

The question of education as a qualification for the 
ballot involves many principles which the limits of this 
address will not allow me to discuss. 

Two thino's the o-overnment is bound to do. It should 
impose such regulations as are necessary to its own per- 
manence and safety, and should encourage general intel- 
ligence among the people. 

In an absolute monarchy, where all the subjects were 
A^irtuous and peaceful, ignorance might not be so danger- 
ous to the ruler, and he might have security with very 
little general knowledge among the people. But in a de- 
mocracy, where the people take part in the government, 
where all its just powers are dependent upon their con- 
sent, intelligence becomes indispensable ; and long ago 
the truth that the welfare and permanence of free insti- 
tutions are based upon both the intelligence and virtue of 
the people, became axiomatic. 

A single vote may decide the fate of the republic. 
How easy it is to impose upon those unable to read, is 
illustrated by the fraudulent treaty made with the Sioux, 
by which our government obtained a deed to future 
States by falsely interpreting its contents to Red Cloud 
as a treaty of peace. 

This deception has already cost us an average of six 
hundred lives per annum, and more than ten times the 
amount of an honest sale, in military expenses. To what 
further calamities it may lead, time alone can tell. So 



THE QUESTION OF LABOR. 23 

by one single voter, unable to read his ballot, the liber- 
ties of a whole nation may be overthrown. By restrict- 
ing the ballot to those only able to read it, there would 
be no danger from state education, and at the same time 
such a restriction would encourage general intelligence. 

The limitation by birthplace is especially important in 
view of Asiatic immigration. If we allow every foreigner 
to vote who has been in this country a few years, regard- 
less of his interest in its welflire or his relation to other 
governments, we should jeopardize the permanency of 
free institutions. On the other hand, many persons come 
to us so thoroughly imbued with the true spirit of repub- 
licanism, that it would be manifestly unjust to place them 
so long upon probation. 

It is to be hoped that sufficient wisdom exists in our 
national legislature to frame a naturalization law that 
will remedy our present evils, and be better adapted, 
with safety to ourselves, to do ample justice to all who 
may come to us from other lands. 

Thus guarded, the ballot in the hands of both sexes 
will be at once the bulwark and perpetuity of libertj^, and 
that peaceful artillery of the people against which no 
despotism or injustice can stand. 

The next problem which presses upon the American 
people for solution is 

THE QUESTION OF LABOR AND ITS RELATION TO CAPITAL. 

While our political system is theoretically an exact re- 
versal of the monarchies of the Old World, unfortunately 
our laws regulating labor and the finances of the coun- 
try are directly copied from old monarchies, and are 
based upon the aristocratic idea, that labor is dishonorabUf 
and that it is the right of capital to control it. 



24 THE QUESTION OF LABOR 

As an illustration of the nnwise inequality of our pres- 
ent laws, by which a few persons become rich at the cost 
of the many, I refer you to the National Banks, in which 
Sooo, 000,000 in government bonds are employed for 
banking purposes. These bonds are yielding the bank- 
ers $30,000,000 annuall}^ as interest, in addition to the 
$30,000,000 they receive as interest upon their own 
notes, which these bonds secure, making a net income, 
after deducting taxes, of $54,000,000 per annum, which 
is over twenty-six per cent, upon the amount actually 
paid for these bonds. 

Legislation that permits such wholesale robbery of 
those who perforui the work of the country will only 
find its parallel in the " Institutes of Menu," written 
nearly three thousand years ago, in which the rate of 
interest on money ranged from fifteen to sixty per cent. 

Instead of adopting a policy that would tend to dis- 
tribute wealth equitably among the people in harmony 
with our political system, our legislation is rapidly con- 
centrating in the hands of soulless monopolies and cor- 
porations, by giving them exclusive privileges incompati- 
ble with the interests of the people at large. So great 
has become the power of money in the government that 
it already elects legislators and controls their acts. In 
my own State the meeting of the legislature annually 
brings foreboding doubt and gloom upon the minds of 
our people, while the day of its final adjournment is one 
of general joy. 

What a comment on our civilization, for three persons 
in every hundred to own more than half of all the real 
estate and personal property in the nation, and to compel 
the laboring classes to pay not less than nine per cent, for 
its use, when, by the Census Reports, the aggregate in- 



AND ITS RELATION TO CAPITAL. 25 

crease of all the wealth in the country has not exceeded 
three and a half per cent, per annum. 

In addition to all this, our present system of taxation 
is a monstrous injustice to the industrial classes, and 
" silently transfers a large share of their earnings to the 
hands of others who have never lifted a finger to perform 
any productive labor." 

In that wonderful romance entitled "The Man who 
laughs," in Gwynplaine's speech to the Peers of England, 
Victor Hugo portrays the exact condition of the English 
people at the beginning of the eighteenth century. 

" My Lords, — Do yoii know who pays the taxes tliat you vote ? 
Those who are dying. Alas ! you deceive yourselves. You augment the 
poverty of the poor to augment the riches of the rich. It is tlie reverse 
that must be done. AVhat, take from the laborer to give to the idler ! 
Take from the ragged to give to the overfed ! Beware of the laws you 
decree, for the multitudes are in affo?iy, and that which is below — in 
dying — brings death upon that which is above. Ah, this society is false. 
One day the true society will come. Then there will be no more lords ; 
there will be free, living men." 

Senator Sprague, in his speech on the Tenure of Office 
Act, says : — 

" Can legislators find anything to console and comfort them in their 
examination of the state of domestic society and social condition among 
the people of the United States ? I know something of the character of 
the people whom you have been taught to despise under other govern- 
ments ; and if I am an impartial judge, that examination has given to me the 
belief that American society to-day has perhaps less virtue, less morality, 
in it, than that of any civilized government in the world. Is that not the 
fault of your legislation ? The difference between those who possess acci- 
dental fortunes and those who live by their daily labor is the cause of the 
demoralization. It is the striving of those who are rich to be richer, and 
the striving of the poor to imitate the rich ; and in that contest virtue is 
lost. Where is there a father who leaves his house Avith any security ? 
Where is there a mother who sends her son into the woi'Id, subject to the 



26 THE QUESTION OF LABOR. 

temptations that are about him, without alarm? Where is there a 
husband who closes his doors with satisfaction ? Where is the father, 
who has an anxious care over his daugliter, vviJUng to have her leave his 
eye and his jirotection to begin the struggle against the temptations 
around her? There is to this an echo in the heart of every man who 
heai'S me. Is that a comfortable state of things on which Senators rely in 
safety and in security ? You stand in the track of an avalanche, you are 
on the brink of a precipice, and know it not. There is a paralysis 
throughout this body and throughout the country." 

It cannot be denied that most of the evils which afflict 
society are greatly increased, if not directly caused, by 
unjust legislation. 

It has created already in America a moneyed aristocracy 
more dangerous to liberty than all the armies of the 
Rebellion. It has prostrated our foreign commerce and 
paralyzed domestic trade. Industry is burdened by it, 
and distrust is universal. It has built palaces for the few, 
and now taxes the men who live in hovels to keep up 
the establishments. It clothes gold gamblers in purple 
and fine linen, and honest laborers in rags. It keeps ten 
thousand comfortable dwellings in New York City vacant, 
while those who built them are crowded together in dis- 
comfort, because they have not money to pay high rents. 
It has filled the land with poverty, idleness, intemperance, 
and crime. 

So great and numerous have become the frauds and 
thefts of men in office in the civil service, that Mr. 
Jenckes told Congress that the passage of a single bill 
would save annually more than $50,000,000 to the 
government. But neither the bill to reform the civil 
service or the one to abolish the franking privilege will 
become laws, so long as Congressmen continue to en- 
courage official corruption and pay a premium on fraud. 
All these burdens must be borne by those who toil. 



AND ITS RELATION TO CAPITAL. 27 

" How long, Lord, how long " shall the brain and 
muscle of labor — the only true source of all individual 
and national wealth — be sheltered in hovels and fed on 
husks ? 

All these unjust laws must be changed. Taxes, which 
in consequence of our capital-protecting system are levied 
indirectly upon the consumer, should be laid upon the 
property or its annual profits, increasing the rate in 
geometrical ratio in proportion to its accumulation, thus 
limiting by taxation that power of riches which is incon- 
sistent with and dangerous to a republican government. 

What right has one man to own all the houses, while 
those who built them are without a shelter ? Who g:ave 
permission to wealth to buy up all the land, and by what 
we term ownership have the right to say at what rates 
it should be tilled, or whether it should be tilled at all ? 

If men have the right to measure value by the neces- 
sities of the receiver, then our present high rates of 
mterest in government bonds is right, and the un- 
numbered evils arising from our financial policy are all 
legitimate. 

When called to testify in a case of extortion from 
the government, a prominent business man said, " If I 
thought the government wanted the property and must 
have it, and could not possibly do without it, if I had 
given only fifteen dollars for it, I would ask two hundred 
and fifty thousand dollars for it, or as much more as I 
thought I could get. I would take advantage of the 
necessities of the government just as I would of the 
necessities of a private individual in any business trans- 
action." 

Such is the system of commercial ethics upheld by the 
unwise legislation of Cons-ress. 



28 THE QUESTION OF LABOR 

It is based upon that monstrous principle, or ratlier 
that total lack of principle, so often quoted — Ihat the price 
of anything should he determined hy what it ivill bring. The 
same logic would compel a starving man to sell his life- 
long services for bread, or permit avarice, for a glass of 
cold water, to secure all the fortune of one dying with 
thirst. It would be only taking " advantage of his 
necessity," and determining price by ^^ tvhat it will bring ^' 
instead of regulating price by cost or the labor of producing 
the article.^ the only equitable rule for the regulation of all 
values. 

This principle, recognizing labor as the foundation and 
source of all wealth, becoming the law of the land, would 
destroy the antagonisms of society and harmonize all 
human interests. This will not be done by politicians. 
A system of money which in a single week can legally 
rob the people of a hundred million dollars, and divide it 
between the robbers and the politicians, will not be easily 
abolished. So long as the toiling millions will pay these 
unseen taxes upon the food they eat, clothes they wear, 
books they read, fuel that warms, and houses that shelter 
them, — all produced by their labor, — for the purpose of 
keeping a few men rich, and some party in power, so 
lono' will these wrono;s remain. 

What this country needs to-day is united political effort 
among those striving to obtain an honest living by the 
sweat of their own brows, either with hand or brain. 
Divided, the working classes become an easy conquest. 
Mobs and strikes will not avail. Capital can fdl the 
places of our mechanics with half-paid pauper labor from 
Asia, and what can they do about it ? To vent their 
spite upon the innocent Chinese would be a crime. 
They must either cooperate equitably with employers or 



AND ITS RELATION TO CAPITAL. 29 

succumb to capital, work at reduced wages, and hear their 
children's cry for bread. 

" Tis hard upon the many, 
Hard, viiipitied by the few, 
To starve and die for want of work, 
Or live half starved with work to do." 

As a large share of the people's burdens come from 
corruption in public officers, let the peoj^le demand 
integrity and capacity as qualifications in their public 
servants. Let them demand that dishonesty in public 
office be punished with perpetual disfranchisement. 

If Republican and Democratic Congressmen cannot 
comprehend the importance of this labor question, let the 
people unite and elect those who can. Ignoring party, 
let Justice be the rallying cry of all. 

The policy of Congress in squandering the public 
domain upon a few monopolies in violation of the rights 
of labor, is a gigantic swindle. 

The public lands belong to the people of the United 
States. Instead of allowing them to be given to private 
corporations for speculative purposes, — granting to a 
single corporation land enough to make six States as 
large as Massachusetts, — let them be sacredly held in 
trust for the homes of actual settlers. This policy would 
change the desert into fruitful fields before the end of this 
century. It would transfer the sickly and discouraged 
dwellers in overcrowded cities to the virgin soil of the 
glorious West, where the honest laborer finds a sure re- 
ward, where healthful airs bring back the glow of youth, 
and where pearly dew-drops, genial showers, and beaming 
suns all join to bless his toil. 

Those vast empires of unoccupied lands would be 
dotted with happy homes, where the husbandman could 



30 THE QUESTION OF TEMPERANCE. 

plant trees and eat their luscious fruits ; '' where he 
could rear and educate his children in honest labor, in 
frugal habits, in useful knowledge, in liberal reading and 
intelligent conversation, in robust vigor of body and 
mind, in gentle dispositions, cultured tastes, unaffected 
manners, domestic duties, and humanitarian uses ; where 
he could sow flowers, whose beauty and fragrance would 
send nutrition to the soul, whose opening petals are up- 
lifted and longing for the everlasting beauty and the 
eternal perfume ; where in manly independence and 
dignity, free from anxiety for bread, he could equilibrate 
labor by repose, hunger by the frugal meal, the care and 
trouble of the world by domestic felicity, and give to the 
nation its brightest jewels, sons and daughters, to dazzle 
in its crown." 

As equitable relations become established in society, 
the hours of daily toil will lessen. Time will be had for 
study, thought, perception, reflection, and comparison, 
which, coupled with practical experience, will develop the 
minds of the working classes in the direction of invention, 
so that the abstract and concrete forces of nature shall 
be harnessed for laborious human use. Thus the sons 
and daughters of labor will be able to study science, 
literature, and art, and, above all, to acquire some 
knowledge of themselves. 

This brings me to the consideration of the 

QUESTION OF TEMPERANCE, 

which challenges man's highest thought. This question is 
old, but not well understood. Men have been looking at 
the effects rather than the cause of intemperance. These 
causes must be understood and removed before this 
world-wide wave of desolation shall be stayed. If 



THE QUESTION OF TEMPERANCE. 31 

alcohol, tobacco, opium, or any others thniili are needful, 
either for the human body or soul, the principle of 
total abstinence is wrong-, and their use, in moderation, 
right. Physiological temperance is the moderate use of 
things of right quality, and until their quality is made 
right, forl/ids that they should be used at all. 

Hitherto this question has been discussed upon the 
premise that alcohol is really of some use to the human 
organism, that it does impart strength to the weak, and 
that all the evil comes from its abuse. This theory is 
upheld by physicians all over the land, and generally 
believed by the people. Upon this monstrous fallacy 
Science must bring in her verdict, and natural laws, as 
expressed in physiological chemistry, j)ronounce sen- 
tence. 

This theory confounds the process of stimulation with 
that of nutrition, which error underlies all the evils 
drunkenness inflicts. 

When people understand that between all living tissues 
and alcohol there is an eternal antas-onism ; that beino;: 
neither digested nor assimilated, it is incapable of fur- 
nishing nutriment to any part of the animal economy ; 
and that it stimulates only because of the efforts of the 
physical system to expel it as a poison, hostile to its 
very life, they will have taken one step in the right 
direction. 

One great cause of intemperance is the unhygienic 
food upon which people generally subsist. Stimulating 
and highly seasoned dishes produce an unnatural thirst, 
which water will not quench ; and an abundance of ole- 
aginous substances produces an appetite for tobacco — 
twin brother to rum, and to the inner man the worse 
enemy of the two. 



82 THE QUESTION OF TEJilPERANCE. 

The dietetic habits of a people determine not only 
their physical strengtli, but also their moral and intellec- 
tual status, and extend even to the houses in which they 
live. This is illustrated from the Chinese idea of archi- 
tecture, which may be seen in their pagodas, built tall 
and slender, like the rice plant which constitutes their 
principal article of food. The Dutch build houses of one 
story, — and every addition must be on the ground floor, 
— spread out like the cabbage upon which they depend 
for sour-krout. Who ever saw a Avild Irishman who 
failed either to build the first story of his house imder 
ground, or bring the ground partly to the roof on the 
outside, thus working out the burrowing habits of the 
potato upon which for centuries his ancestors fed ? 
Indeed, so intimate is the relation between the pros- 
perity of a people and the food they eat, that the 
number of marriages is said to depend upon the price 
of corn. 

The temperance reform depends upon physiological 
reform, which must commence in the kitchen, where the 
women do all the voting and make all the laws. Thus 
to woman suffrage, either at home or at the polls, must 
we look for those prohibitory laws which will prove the 
final solution of this great question. 

So long as the people Avill select drunkards for high 
offices, — fill the senate-house with sots, — very little 
help to temperance need be expected from the govern- 
ment. 

If, however, it continues to derive its revenues from 
license, — legalizing poverty, misery, and crime, — it 
should Ije held responsible for all evil results. 

No man should be allowed to sell intoxicating liquors 
who would not give security to pay all losses in time and 



THE QUESTION OF RELIGION. 33 

money occasioned by the liquor sold. He should be held 
responsible in damages for all assaults, batteries, thefts, 
riots, robberies, manslaughters, and murders — for all 
injuries either to the person or to property — caused by 
drunkenness. 

I would make the turning of the God-made fruits — 
grapes, cherries, peaches, apples, as well as potatoes and 
grains — into poisonous man-made liquids, a felony, and 
punish it as such; and every man who would desecrate 
your beautiful Connecticut Valley or any other spot of 
God's green footstool with a tobacco plant, I would jjanish 
to the o-enial clime of Alaska. 

The last great subject that threatens to convulse this 
age is 

THE QUESTION OF RELIGION. 

Shall CEcumenical councils or so-called Christian Unions 
be successful in their attempts to cramp the human mind, 
" that lofty thing," and crush out free thought, in this 
afternoon of the nineteenth century, on the American 
Continent, where the very sands sparkle with the light of 
freedom, and the air is vocal with its praise ? Shall all 
peoples, of whatever race or clime or creed, have the in- 
estimable privilege of worshipping the Infinite according 
to the dictates of their own consciences, or must they be 
compelled to worship according to the conscience or for- 
mula of somebody else, no matter whether it be a Cath- 
olic Pope or some equally infallible Protestant sinner ? 
That spirit of blind sectarianism and misguided zeal that 
would put theological dogmas into the Constitution of 
the United States, or trample upon the rights and con- 
sciences of any portion of the American people, would 
be worthy the age of religious persecution, but not of the 
Christian name. These fanatics must be overwhelmed 



34 THE QUESTION OF RELIGION. 

with defeat. Arbitrary authority must not overcome 
that central principle of Protestantism, the right of pri- 
vate judgment in all matters of faith and conscience. 
Wherever Christianity has become perverted or corrupt, 
where its true sjDirit is lost, or its vitality smothered be- 
neath the gilittering ornaments of a cold formality, there 
will it oppose every system of education untrammeled by 
its own narrow creeds, and jealous of religious liberty, it 
will demand uncomplaining conformity to its own system. 

But true Christianity encourages the most liberal sys- 
tem of education, and demands the most rigid scrutiny. 
It never attempts to weld itself to the State for the pur- 
pose of enforcing its precepts by flames and fagots, or by 
the more modern methods of political favors or disabili- 
ties. Its kingdom is not of this world. It teaches the 
spiritual unity of the race, and overcomes the spirit of 
caste. It inculcates true democracy for both sexes and 
hospitality to strangers. It enjoins just compensation to 
the laboring classes, and scourges the money-changers. 
It commands cleanliness of both sides of the platter or 
person, and places temperance on true physiological prin- 
ciples among the cardinal virtues. And finally it teaches 
a religion of the heart, — tender in sympathy, active in 
charity, — feeding the hungry, clothing the ragged, teach- 
ing the ignorant, forgiving enemies, and loving all. 

This country and this age are propitious for the spread 
of a pure religion and the upbuilding of the true church. 

When America was beneath the ancient ocean, f{ir 
down in secret places Providence was at work with fires 
and retorts and crucibles, transmuting and refining by a 
divine chemistry, and laying by treasures incalculable for 
human use. What solid and precious things lie waiting 
beneath the soil, to hear the command. Come forth ! What 



THE QUESTION OF KELIGION. 35 

mountains of granite, what measures of coal, what rivers 
of oil ! All these treasures of the earth — iron, lead, 
copper, marble, salts, beautiful crystals, sparkling dia- 
monds, with exhaustless mines of silver and gold, as well 
as the salubrious airs above — all point to America as the 
New Jerusalem destined to become " a rejoicing and her 
people a joy," a land of religious toleration to all nations, 
and kindred, and tongues, upon which the dark clouds of 
superstitious bigotry should never rest. Nay, more ; the 
age demands that here should be the universal temple 
in which antagonistic creeds shall be lost in the oneness 
of truth, and all varieties of worship blend in a divine 
harmony of wisdom, justice, goodness, faith, hope, and 
universal love. 

Such are the questions of to-day, which we are com- 
missioned to help work out. Now is the time for work. 
Age, and youth, and the strength of middle life must pre- 
pare the way for the incoming reign of Justice in the 
world. 

To you, students of former years, and these grand 
young men and women of to-day; aye, and to this all 
prosperous church to which this school belongs, — al- 
ready powerful and great, — has humanity a right to 
look for the true, out-wrought answers to these difficult 
problems. 

Let not the magnitude of the work dishearten any, 
but rather let its grandeur encourage all to self-sacri- 
ficing and heroic deeds, remembering that all progress is 
with struggle, that of agony is horn all highest pleasure, and 

FROM THE CRYSTALLIZED PANGS OF CRUCIFIXION COME ALL DI- 
VINEST JOYS. 









^bva^^ 



























yED>jx^mi> )>i3^::q>>3c>>o^ 





















1^ j>.>2: 
^3 3 i: 



^. ^ ^:^ :>^. 






• ?3 >> 



.Jir^^rj 



























•:i>X3iD :^:yym> :>p:>^ 






jy^3:^yj:>3i 



■y>iy'm>yy 



>:^x>:>i^'2>>>)t 












m 






y'^.^.y 



J> j> y 



-^^ >^ym^ -> 
y^^ ^^ :»2>^ : 



m:>y y2>2^ y^y^^m^y 

=js^ j> :^r>j> y-yp?^''y 



^Jjy 









' ' j> y:> .3j>:>.:^ 
>s> ^^ :>'^ :>y. 






:>^5>> 



.)'^ >.u>"! 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



011 290 198 A 



